Anne Nicol Gaylor: Champion for women

Editor's Note: Anne Nicol Gaylor passed away this week at the age of 88. Most notable for co-founding the Madison-based Freedom from Religion Foundation with her daughter, Annie Laurie Gaylor, she also co-founded the Women’s Medical Fund, a non-profit organization offering financial assistance to low-income Wisconsin women and girls seeking abortion. Founded in 1972, the fund has helped more than 20,000 women and girls between the ages of 11 and 47.

Throughout her life Gaylor remained steadfast in her pursuit of reproductive justice. She acknowledged that Wisconsin was “not a good state for women seeking abortions,” but nevertheless found a way to help those who needed one – even as the hurdles to legal abortion became greater over the last 40 years. Gaylor was still active as a volunteer with the Women’s Medical Fund until earlier this year.

According to her obituary in the New York Times, Gaylor requested a small tombstone be inscribed “Feminist — Activist — Freethinker.”

The following is an Isthmus article from September 2005 about Gaylor’s work with the fund.

Anne Nicol Gaylor calls Wisconsin 'not a good state for women seeking abortions.'

In 1969, several years before the Roe v. Wade decision, a Milwaukee physician named Sidney Babbitz was arrested and charged with performing a criminal abortion. In March 1970, the case was heard in Milwaukee before a panel of three federal judges, who ruled unanimously that Wisconsin’s abortion law was unconstitutional.

Anne Nicol Gaylor had already been pushing for abortion law reform. She wrote frequently about the issue, surveyed hundreds of Wisconsin doctors, and helped establish the Madison chapter of the Wisconsin Committee to Legalize Abortion.

In August 1970, spurred by the Milwaukee court decision and her involvement with the group Zero Population Growth, Gaylor placed the following ad in Madison's daily newspapers: “Abortion is legal and available in Wisconsin. If your doctor won’t help, contact the Zero Population Growth Referral Service.”

By the end of the month, 93 women had contacted her. Since abortions were expensive and difficult to obtain in Wisconsin, Gaylor referred some women to Mexico City and New York. In other cases, she helped them obtain the two letters from a physician or psychiatrist that were required to obtain a legal abortion in Wisconsin.

In 1971, Dr. Alfred Kennan, a gynecologist, opened Madison's first abortion clinic. Soon after, it was raided and shut down at the instigation of then-Dane County District Attorney Gerald Nichol. In the following weeks, Gaylor helped place some of the 324 women who had appointments in Madison at New York clinics. Six weeks later, after a flurry of court hearings, the clinic re-opened.

In the interim, one young Wisconsin woman who had an appointment at the Madison clinic forced a wire coat hanger into herself, punctured her uterus, and bled to death.

The following year, Gaylor and UW chemistry professor Robert West created a fund to help women pay for abortions. Gaylor, now 78, still runs the Women’s Medical Fund. West, like Gaylor, is on the fund’s board of directors.

The Women’s Medical Fund, nonprofit and volunteer-run, has changed little over the last 33 years. Women are referred by abortion clinic staffers, social workers, parole officers, health-care providers and organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Rape Crisis Center.

The fund has each woman complete a simple form. It asks about health insurance, finances, relationship status, prior pregnancies and any complications, physical or otherwise.

“Most women who receive help are on state Medical Assistance,” says the fund’s treasurer, Nora Cusack. “Abortion is legal to them, but they face economic restrictions.” (Medical Assistance cannot generally be used to cover abortion costs.)

“The average woman helped receives $225,” says Cusack, “But some only need $30.” Some women wait for the next paycheck, unaware that the cost rises as the pregnancy advances.

In 2004, the Women’s Medical Fund helped pay abortion costs for more than 840 Wisconsin women and girls. It spent $190,722 on these costs, and only $1,162 on overhead. Gaylor says the number of impoverished Wisconsin women seeking abortions with the fund’s help has stayed about the same over the years.

In addition to abortion costs, women seeking to terminate pregnancies in Wisconsin are required by law to have an ultrasound and attend a counseling session to learn about abortion dangers and alternatives, then wait at least 24 hours. This adds between $75 to $125 to the cost, more for women from rural areas who must pay for gas or hotels.

To help as many women as possible, the fund only covers actual abortion procedures. But it works with women to help them find ways to pay these other costs.

In 2005 so far, the fund has helped around 400 women. Among them: a 27-year-old mother of four who was raped by three men; a 15-year-old ninth-grader who feared her family would force her to give birth; a 25-year-old woman with six children who was denied a requested tubal ligation after her last delivery by a religious hospital; a 26-year-old woman with two children and an abusive boyfriend; and a 14-year-old rape victim whose assailant is now in jail.

Wisconsin Medical Assistance is required to cover the cost of an abortion in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, when a physician is willing to document the assault in a signed letter and the assault is reported to law enforcement. The abortion is also covered if a doctor documents that the woman has “a medical condition existing prior to the abortion, the physician determines an abortion is directly and medically necessary to prevent grave, long-lasting physical health damage to the woman.”

In 2004, according to the state Department of Health and Family Services, only eight out of 9,719 abortions obtained by Wisconsin women met these stringent requirements. Indeed, during the last five years, only 28 abortions by Wisconsin women were covered, out of more than 52,000 performed.

This is why Gaylor calls Wisconsin “not a good state for women seeking abortions.” Barbara Lyons, the executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life, sees it differently: “The state has paid for very few abortions. It appears the law is being used very strictly, and we are pleased with that.”

Lyons, predictably, is not a fan of Women's Medical Fund: “We think the money could be better used.” Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, is also opposed to the fund.

"Unlike what Mother Teresa is doing, this fund is out offering money to exterminate the children of the poorest of the poor," she says, adding that she thinks the fund's willingness to help pay encourages women to abort. "There's never any cases where [a woman's] first intent is to snuff out the life of a baby."

But Gaylor says the fund is needed because the federal government has abdicated its responsibility to poor women when it comes to reproductive rights. She looks back on the brief period of time after Roe v. Wade and before the Hyde Amendment cut off the use of Medical Assistance for most abortions “with nostalgia really.”

In the future, Gaylor worries about further restrictions on a woman's right to choose, including, possibly, stricter criteria for obtaining birth control. And, of course, the U.S. Supreme Court could yet repeal Roe v. Wade altogether. And that could prompt the Women's Medical Fund to resume its former role.

“If abortion became illegal,” says Gaylor, “we could have a referral service again.”